were exchanged for wooden blades and they were divided, along with the fifty or so other boys of their age, into two equal contingents. On the practice field a lance adorned with red pennant had been thrust into the frost-hard earth. Vaelin was surprised to see the other Masters standing on the fringes of the field, even Master Jestin who was rarely seen outside his forge.
“ War is our sacred charge,” the Aspect told them when they had been arrayed before him. “It is the reason for the Order’s existence. We fight in defence of the Faith and the Realm. Today you will fight a battle. One contingent will seek to capture that pennant, another will defend it. Masters will observe the battle. Any Brother failing to show sufficient courage and skill in battle will be required to leave on the morrow. Fight well, remember your lessons. Killing blows are not permitted.”
As the Aspect walked from the field the two contingents eyed each other with mingled trepidation and excitement. They all knew what this meant, no killing blows and wooden swords or not this would be a bloody day.
Master Sollis came forward and handed Vaelin’s contingent a number of red ribbons and told them to tie them to their left arm. Nearby Master Haunlin was handing out white ribbons to their nominal enemies. “You will attack, the whites will defend,” Sollis told them. “The battle is over when one of you gets his hands on the lance.”
As their white ribboned enemies trooped off to arrange themselves in a loose line in front of the lance Vaelin saw the Aspect greeting three unfamiliar onlookers. There were two men, one large and broad the other lean and wiry with long black hair trailing in the wind. The third figure was small, muffled in furs, and clung to the side of the large man.
“ Who is that, master?” he asked when Sollis handed him a ribbon but it was clearly not a day for questions.
“ Worry about the Test, boy!” Sollis cuffed him angrily on the side of the head. “Distraction will kill you this day.”
When they had all tied the ribbons to their arms they stood eyeing the defenders about a hundred yards away. Somehow they seemed to have grown in number.
“ What do we do, Vaelin?” Dentos asked, looking at him expectantly.
Vaelin was about to shrug when he noticed they were all looking at him expectantly, not just the boys from his group, all of them. Nortah was the only exception, blithely tossing his wooden sword into the air and catching it again. He seemed bored. Vaelin struggled to formulate a plan; they were taught combat but not tactics. He had heard of flanking manoeuvres and frontal attacks but had no real idea how they worked. Most of the battle stories he knew concerned heroic brothers winning victory through individual effort and even then they were usually trying to storm a city wall or defend a bridge not capture a lance. The lance…What value is there in a lance?
“ Vaelin?” Caenis prompted.
“ This isn’t really a battle,” Vaelin said, thinking aloud.
“ What?”
Battles are not over when a man gets his hands on a lance, they’re over when one army destroys the other. That’s why it’s called the Test of the Melee. They want to see us fight, that’s all. The lance means nothing.
“ We’ll go straight into them,” he said, raising his voice, trying to sound both confident and decisive. “We’ll charge into the centre of their line, hard and fast. Break it open and the lance is ours.”
“ Hardly a subtle stratagem, brother,” Nortah observed.
“ Do you want to lead this?”
Nortah inclined his head, smiling. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m sure your plan is sound.”
“ Form up,” Vaelin told them. “Keep it tight. Barkus you’re in front with me, and you Nortah. You two as well,” he picked out two of the beefier boys he knew to be more aggressive than most. “Caenis, Dentos stay close, keep them off when we go for the lance. The rest of you heard what the Aspect said. If you don’t want your coins in the morning get in there, pick an enemy and beat him to the ground, when you’ve done that find another.”
The cheer surprised him, a ragged yell punctuated with a small forest of upraised wooden swords. He joined in, waving his sword and yelling and feeling silly. Incredibly, they yelled even louder, some of them even began shouting his name.
He kept it going as they began to advance, walking at first. The hundred yards to the enemy seemed to shrink in a few heart beats.
“ Vaelin! Vaelin!”
He took the pace up to a jog, hoping to save as much energy as possible for the fight.
“ Vaelin! Vaelin!”
Some of the boys were almost screaming now, Caenis amongst them. The pace began to quicken as they covered more than half the distance to the enemy. Seemingly his small army was eager to get at their foes. Some of them breaking into a run.
“ Steady!” Vaelin shouted. “Keep together!”
“ Vaelin! Vaelin!” He glanced around seeing faces distorted with rage. Fear, he understood. They hide fear in rage. He didn’t feel enraged. In fact, his overriding concern was that he didn’t get another scar. He had only just had the stitches removed from his last one, a deep cut on his thigh earned from a nasty fall when riding.
“ Vaelin! Vaelin!”
They were all running now, their formation starting to break up. Dentos, despite instructions, was out in front, yelling with manic fervour.
Oh for Faith’s sake! Vaelin broke into a sprint, pointing his sword at the centre of the enemy line. “Charge! CHARGE…”
The two groups met with bone crunching force, Vaelin’s shoulder feeling like he had rammed it into a tree although he did manage to knock over two defenders. At first it seemed the shock of their charge would force a path straight through to the lance as five or six defenders went down under the combined weight, with Barkus trampling over their prone forms to charge for the pennant. However, their foes quickly gathered their wits and soon both sides were thrashing at each other with a savagery none had known before. Vaelin found himself assailed by two boys at once, both swinging their ash swords with a ferocity that made them forget their many lessons. He parried a blow, dodged another then hit back with a swipe at one boy’s legs, sending him to the ground. The other thrust at Vaelin but over-extended, allowing Vaelin to trap his sword arm beneath his own and send him reeling with a headbutt.
As the battle raged and the air filled with the mingled cacophony of cracking wood and grunted pain it became harder to follow the chain of events, time seemed to fragment, the struggle becoming a series of confused, bruising fights in which he caught only the vaguest glimpses of his comrades. Barkus was laying about with his sword, two handed blows landing with sickening thwacks on those who made the mistake of venturing too close. Dentos, forehead bloodied, had lost his sword and was exchanging punches with a boy a foot or more taller, he seemed to be winning. Caenis leapt on an opponent’s back and proceeded to choke him with his sword, forcing him to the ground before one of the defender’s boots caught him on the head, sending him sprawling. Vaelin fought his way through to him, hacking through the press of struggling boys, finding Caenis on his back desperately parrying blows from the boy he had tried to choke. Vaelin kicked him in the stomach and brought his sword up to connect with his temple, dropping him to the earth where he stayed for the rest of the battle.
“ Enjoying the glory of it, brother?” he asked Caenis, leaning down and offering a hand to help him up.
“ Duck!” Caenis yelled.
Vaelin went down on one knee and felt the wind rush of a sword narrowly missing his head. He twisted, bringing his leg round to sweep the attacker off his feet, smacking his sword against his nose as he fell. They fought together after that, back to back, stumbling over unconscious or wounded comrades and enemies until they were within a few yards of the lance. One of the defenders, seeing a final chance to display his courage, charged at them wildly, screaming and hacking. Caenis parried his first slash and Vaelin sent him to the ground with a blow to the shoulder that made him wince at the audible crack of breaking bone.
Then it was done, no more enemies, no one to fight. Just groaning boys stumbling around and rolling on the ground amidst their immobile brothers and Nortah standing with the lance in his hands, blood streaming from wounds on his head and face. He smiled as Vaelin approached, a thick crimson bead swelling on the cut in his lip. “It was a good plan, brother.”
Vaelin steadied him as he swayed, feeling more tired than he could remember, his arms felt like lead and the aftermath of violence left a ball of sickness in the pit of his stomach. He found he had no real idea how long it had
